The war on drugs it not only NOT working here in the U.S., but worldwide as well.

A pressure group that includes six former presidents called Tuesday for the United Nations to acknowledge that "repressive drug law enforcement" was driving an HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The global "war on drugs" was forcing users away from treatment and into environments where the risk of contracting HIV was high, the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) argued.

In a report published Tuesday, the panel urged the UN to "acknowledge and address the causal links between the war on drugs and the spread of HIV/AIDS and drug market violence".

It also presented evidence that aggressive law enforcement policies created barriers to HIV treatment.

"The public health implications of HIV treatment disruptions resulting from drug law enforcement tactics have not been appropriately recognized as a major impediment to efforts to control the global HIV/AIDS pandemic," it argued.

The GCDP is a panel of politicians, writers and businessmen that advocates decriminalizing drug use by those who "do no harm to others".

Members of the GCDP include six former presidents, four of whom are from Latin America: Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ricardo Lagos of Chile and Colombia's Cesar Gaviria.

It was Gaviria who led Colombia when police gunned down the notorious drug-runner Pablo Escobar in 1993.

Other supporters include the European Union's former foreign policy chief Javier Solana and George Shultz, the who served as US secretary of state during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

The report accused the US, Russia and Thailand of ignoring scientific evidence about the relationship between law enforcement policies and HIV rates "with devastating consequences."

The increased availability of drugs worldwide proved that the strategy was failing, it added.

"The war on drugs has failed, and millions of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths can be averted if action is taken now," it concluded.

The war on drugs is an obvious failure. We all agree on that. Not just in stopping the illicit activities that go along with it, but by foolishly filling prisons with young people sometimes for merely selling MJ.

If anyone has gone to a local courthouse lately, you will also agree it is sheer insanity seeing so much waste in court time and costs, police time and costs, prison and jail expenses when it comes to petty drug "crimes". Hell, there is so much waste when it comes to our court system, period.

Having said all that, it is not as simple as just not enforcing the laws, we need to completely rethink how we are going to deal with this. It's a daunting task. It's going to take a lot of work to re-figure this whole mess out. The trouble is, we need our politicians to get this done, that's the protocol, but politicians seem to be our worst enemy when it comes to getting anything done nowadays. Well, done in a halfway sane manner anyway.

Jeez, you know what? It always goes back to the American people. We are electing some sorry ass politicians. The drug war is our own dam fault. Shit, everything wrong with the nation is our own damn fault,.. we suck ass at electing politicians,(Bush)but I guess that's the topic of another thread.